Gold Medal!

…or DISQUALIFIED!! Olympic contenders fear that word – and so should the rest of us. “Unfit to Compete” – imagine being suspended for such a reason. Yet, according to the United States Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (www.ahrq.gov), “all US adults could be overweight in 40 years”.

While that is serious enough, there is a parallel universe of contenders, in business. Their habits of ‘excess’ have positioned them in exactly the same place where their ability to compete is diminished. They are too top-heavy in management or carrying too large a ‘spare tire’ of unproductive personnel who follow antiquated ‘training’, inefficient processes, and the like. While some struggle and defend their inability to loose this ‘poundage’, others have found ways to trim budgets and become ‘lean’ and more ‘agile’ in their practices. Most have done so by returning to a proven diet of basic ‘food groups’ of business importance. And in an interesting parallel, many of those same thought leaders have also realized the business benefits of that same healthy approach in the lifestyles of their personnel. They have all found that common basic solution. rather than giving up and quitting.

Seth Goodin in his book – ‘The DIP‘ looks (perhaps as one-of-a-kind) on the subject of ‘quitting’. Having been trained on a diet of “try-try-try”, the mere subject made me reluctant to consider its contents. What became clear after listening to his video interview – is that

true Olympians don’t practice everyone else’s sport.

They first consider their chances – and then focus on ONLY their own skill – to its excellence. Individually they can be at their best, and collectively as a team they can then rack up more ‘gold’ than competitors.

We need that Olympic reminder every four years. Somewhere along the way to life’s ‘games’, many have abandoned some of those principles – in favor of letting everyone ‘train’ everyone else to ‘eat’ whatever they want, letting anyone ‘participate’, and then giving everyone a ‘medal’. What that may be leading to is not only unhealthy individuals but also

unproductive companies and even indefensible nations.

As we enter the new relationship economy, the online global competition can uncover every possible flaw in our ‘routines’, openly, in front of the entire world, and in a matter of seconds. While we may prefer a quick fix or cosmetic surgery cover-up, the new transparency of the internet will expose how out-of-shape we truly are – individually and collectively. It will dynamically measure how we adjust to each other as team members and our global standings as well.

The challenge – and the opportunity – all lie in how we accept our individual responsibility to become ‘fit’ for this global competition.

PLEASE NOTE: While this website is my personal initiative, the ASK4™ approach is a participant-managed collaboration platform and the U-Netted Nations™ is the result of our ‘Collaboration On Purpose’. My voice becomes one in a million – immediately.